Theory (The Heretic's Guide to Homecoming #1)

by Sienna Tristen

He had heard once, from one of the deckhands, that the ocean was the one place every human could come home to, no matter how far from home they were.

Life is transformation, he thought. You change or you die. So change, already.

And this boy, he fell in love with the sea. While his hands were busy mopping decks or polishing gunwales, his mind was afloat on the waves, his heart at play with the dolphins; he was so far from home so much of the time, and lacking in motherly tenderness, and the sea swept in and filled this void in him, and she became his mother.

There are some things so close to one’s soul, so agonizingly precious, that to speak them to another is to bear a spiritual jugular, to allow the possibility of having it slit. The why, it was there in Ronoah’s mind, fiery as the sun perched now on the rim of the earth, waiting for him to come and get her—the why was simple, was obvious, fundamental. It was what held him together, bone by bone, like a sheath of motivational muscle, taken root in the marrow.

we cannot strip the magic out of words, for without the magic, the words are no longer words,

There’s no way you can do it, sneered a voice in his head. So, said a second voice, a warmer voice, quieter but stronger—so find a way to learn.

See? a voice echoed in his head, gently. Your insights can be valuable. You only need to voice them.

“I don’t know if you noticed, you probably didn’t, it’s not unusual to you, but the lovers in that story were both boys and it just struck a chord in me. I’ve never heard a story like that. I know they exist, my own’s proof, I just never thought they were supposed to be told. And there wasn’t even a moral at the end, you know, ‘this is why love should only exist between a man and a woman’ or something like that, it—it was like it was irrelevant, and I liked that. I liked it a lot.”

You. You’re real considerate, Ronoah—you’re weird and fidgety and you take life too seriously but when I talk you listen so hard I can almost feel you trying to become me, just to understand better.”

“No matter how far you travel, you can always find a piece of home if you look.”

You said this body belongs to your gods, this mouth, this voice—but right now it’s your voice, too, and I want you to use it for yourself.”

you can’t keep trying to outgrow your upbringing only to let it trap you when it matters most.

Half the appeal of having you tag along is the fact that you dissolve into a puddle of unintelligible enthusiasm every time we come across something remotely interesting.” That was patronizing bordering on offensive, and Ronoah was about to point it out, but Reilin continued with blithe disregard: “It’s a real treat, watching you fall in love with the things I love.”

“We are all bigger than ourselves. We all contain multitudes.

when the heavenly bodies line themselves up for us, it is only courteous to look them in the cosmic eye.

More than one thing at once, Özrek had said. Let yourself be more.

“The cousins have waited nine hundred years for a kindness like yours,” he said, hefting his own pack. “I don’t think they’ll be overly upset waiting a couple more if it means you can exact that kindness with all confidence intact. So I’m ready when you are.”